Spinach Waffle Nougat?

What a weird day! Seriously. How do spinach, waffles and nougat all end up sharing the same holiday? I could think of no way to combine the three that would result in anything that I would want to eat. And since I am attempting to eat healthier (upcoming Lemon Chiffon Cake Day notwithstanding), I decided that I would do Spinach Day. Besides, I really like spinach. And it’s good for you (read about all the healthy stuff here) and it makes your teeth squeak which is just kind of cool and if you eat enough, chicks will dig you. Just ask Popeye and Olive Oyl. Sadly, spinach is another one of those plants that is soaked in pesticides and ranks in the high middle of the worst of the Bad List so you should buy organic (and local) whenever possible. Which leads me to today’s dilemna…

There has been no spinach worth having to be found in any of my favourite food shopping haunts. Trust me. I’ve been looking for days. Why is there no locally grown organic spinach around right now? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s still March. Even my favourite greenhouse isn’t producing yet (probably because they try to rely on the sun for light and heat instead of electricity). So here I sit, thinking longingly of long, warm, sunny days that will produce good to eat stuff like spinach and tomatoes and bell peppers and … *sigh* I suppose I could have bought frozen spinach and made something with that. In fact, it’s not actually a bad option for the following reasons: (1) unless it’s really insanely fresh baby spinach, I don’t like raw spinach; and (2) it takes a LOT of spinach to make a decent amount of cooked spinach. For recipes requiring large amounts of cooked spinach, like spanokopita or lasagna, frozen spinach is an acceptable shortcut if you don’t mind the pesticides (unless you can find organic frozen spinach which I can’t recall seeing ever).

So I didn’t buy any spinach this week. Which means I did not prepare and eat any spinach for today’s post. Which makes me sad. Today I worked late and on the way home I contemplated making one more last ditch attempt to find some spinach worth eating. I was even willing to cave in and buy some crappy, pesticide-laden, imported from who-knows-where spinach. But then I remembered what the wilted, muddy looking stuff masquerading as spinach at the grocery store yesterday looked like and decided to skip it and race home just in time to have some fun time watching my kid play in the bath instead. Pause here for gratuitous cute kid shot:

1. Wash 1 lb. spinach really well and do not remove stems unless they are tough. Using twine, tie the spinach in bunches by its stems.

2. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and then put the spinach in, pushing it under the surface of the water, and cook for 2 – 3 minutes. Remove from the hot water before the bright green colour fades and run cold water over it to cool it quickly.

3. Squeeze out the excess water by rolling the spinach up in a bamboo sushi mat and squeezing firmly until the spinach holds together in a cylindrical shape. Discard the twine and cut the spinach cylinder into sushi size pieces.

1 comment

LOL this was a good one. i will eat and extra dose of spinach for you today! being in southern california we can get it fresh all the time! though i must say…..there will never be a spinach dish as adorale as that kiddo of yours! ADORABLE!